LVIII.
The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impressed[1]
Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch:N12
Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest,
Bid man be valiant ere he merit such:
Her glance how wildly beautiful! how much
Hath Phœbus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek,
Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch!
Who round the North for paler dames would seek?
How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, and weak![2]
LIX.
Match me, ye climes! which poets love to laud;
- ↑
The seal Love's rosy finger has imprest
On her fair chin denotes how soft his touch:
Her lips where kisses make voluptuous nest.—[MS. erased.] - ↑ [Writing to his mother (August 11, 1809), Byron compares "the Spanish style" of beauty to the disadvantage of the English: "Long black hair, dark languishing eyes, clear olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman ... render a Spanish beauty irresistible" (Letters, 1898, i. 239). Compare, too, the opening lines of The Girl of Cadiz, which gave place to the stanzas To Inez, at the close of this canto—
"Oh never talk again to me
Of northern climes and British ladies."But in Don Juan, Canto XII. stanzas lxxiv.-lxxvii., he makes the amende to the fair Briton—
"She cannot step as doth an Arab barb,
Or Andalusian girl from mass returning. ····· But though the soil may give you time and trouble,
Well cultivated, it will render double."]
